Cameras and other media capture devices are often used as part of an overall surveillance system(s) to capture video, audio, or other data related to incidents which occur in a vicinity of such devices. For example, a municipal police department may deploy cameras throughout a city, in order to monitor traffic, and reduce incidents of crime. Similarly, a private enterprise may deploy cameras for similar purposes, such as when cameras are deployed throughout a retail store, in order to learn from patterns of behaviors for shoppers.
It is possible to deploy these and other types of monitoring systems and associated surveillance devices on a large scale, and thereby capture a large quantity of monitoring data across large geographical areas. For such surveillance systems, however, finite resource limits will apply. For example, only a specific number of cameras may be available, or only a limited quantity of human resources may be available to physically transport and install cameras, or there may be bandwidth or other network-related limitations with respect to how much surveillance data can be collected, transmitted, and stored. Also, when available resources are deployed sub-optimally, then redundant or otherwise non-useful information may be captured, and/or valuable information may be missed, or other inefficiencies may occur.